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L’Abri in the 21st Century

“L’Abri will continue to exist as long as the evangelical church is putting off so much of its youth,” John Sandri, L’Abri,

Interesting article on L’Abri at Christianity Today called “Not Your Father’s L’Abri” where Molly Worthen talks about the shift from the 60’s to today and the kind of people who are coming (disaffected evangelicals). I have visited two L’Abris (Switzerland and Massachusetts) and I was really impressed by the amount of young people there. They have always had a good understanding of the arts and the need to dialog through things. Last year I met Ellis Potter in Poland who was a great teacher.

Andrew Jones has been blogging since 1997. He is based in San Francisco with his two daughters but also travels the globe to find compelling stories of early stage entrepreneurs changing their world. Sometimes he talks in the third person. Sometimes he even talks to himself and has been heard uttering the name "Precious" :-)

3 Comments

I read the article a few weeks ago and I enjoyed it. While it does seem that L’Abri is moving away from a place of apologetics, it seems to have found its new ground very well.
I hope to visit one day, I have always heard very good things about the experience.

I think the last sentence says a mouthful, “”Ninety percent of the students are [saying]: I believe all the right things, but there’s no reality to my faith.”
Somehow it seems disingenuous to lay the responsibility for the lack of reality of one’s faith at someone else’s door or the door of ‘modernism’. I’ve known more evangelical hypocrites and phoneys in my day than you can shake a stick at, yet none of that has in any way undermined my faith. The Bible has a lot to say about the origin of faith “…faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God…” Romans 10:17. In fact this entire chapter is amazing with statements like “Whoever believes in Him will not be disappointed” v. 13. So why is there such dissapointment? I believe that it is a result in part from placing one’s faith in people and in a gross lack of hearing and truly learning the Bible. Of course, if the Bible is presented as a book that is not without error, how can one have certainty about any of it? Who shall decide what is accurate and what is not? The Pope? And who decides who the Pope is? Other people; and they have already dissapointed.
I just went to the wedding reception of a former student of mine who went to L’Abri. I was so happy she was going because I observed considerable confusion in her after high school. She came back more confused than ever. Now I know why.